Written by Evi Idoghor
I recall telling a friend about how I lost my mother a month ago. I fought back tears as I described the ordeal we had to go through as a family during her illness. Although it has been 13 years, I still miss her.
When you lose a loved one, their memory stays with you for the rest of your life. It is not a cliché saying; it is true. As a preteen, I never understood why my mother would tell me stories about her father. In my mind, I'd tell her, Mommy, you were 8 years old when he died, and you're now in your 40s; let it go. Even after all those years, I could tell she still missed him. I just indulged her whenever she brought him up. I didn't care (at the time) to learn about my grandfather. And what my little mind couldn’t grasp was how she had not forgotten about a man who had been dead for almost 30 years.
But now I understand. I imagine her thinking about how different life would have been for her and her siblings if he had lived a longer life. Would they have lived as a family or still separated into different homes? Would they have all received a good education and done well for themselves? These are the kinds of thoughts I imagine she had every time he crossed her mind. These are the kinds of thoughts I imagine my cousins having when their parents cross their minds.
Similar thoughts also plague my mind as I find myself in the same situation as my mother, years later. When I am in a difficult situation I often think to myself, “If only Mommy was here, I wouldn't have to go through this.” Even after 13 years the grief hasn't completely gone away.
When my niece came to see me, I showed her a picture of my mother and said, "This is Grandma." Three weeks later, my three-year-old niece returned to my house and remembered who she was; that warmed my heart a lot.
I believe that when you lose a loved one the love you have for them grows even stronger. You want to keep their memory alive (by all means). It is why I'm looking forward to telling my future children how special their "mama," (as my niece affectionately refers to her) was. I also hope to share her life story with the world one day, so that others can see what a remarkable woman she was.
While the pain of loss is a wound that lasts a lifetime, I often console myself with the knowledge that she loved Christ. And because of this, I will be reunited with her one day. “But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope.” 1 Thessalonians 4:13. Though grief never truly goes away; according to this scripture (as Christians) we can still have hope even in the midst of it because Jesus is alive.
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